in baseball, when the bases are loaded, the fourth batter up is called a cleanup hitter. He hopefully will hit a home run and drive everybody on the bases in. And so I'm hoping to hit a grand slam today in the sense of dealing with several topics related to divine election, grace, calling, and foreknowledge. We've used the analogy previously that a lot of people ride in cars, but not all those people understand what's under the hood and makes the engine go. So that's what we're doing in this study of salvation, really. We're looking at how bad is sin. We're looking at how radically sin has impacted mankind, mind, will, and emotions. We're looking at God and how sovereign is he in the salvation process. It's gonna affect a lot of things. It affects eternal security, whether you could lose your salvation, and it affects things like evangelism, how you do evangelism. So the first stop then is grace. As you all know, it says by grace we have been saved through faith. Now the Spanish word for thanks is Gracias, that's related to our English word grace, and it means thanks, and a lot of times we say grace over a meal. We're giving thanks. But what does grace mean besides thanks? An undeserved favor. So if you look it up in the Greek lexicon, it says it means favor, help, or goodwill. The Greek word for grace, it's charis. The Greek word for gift is related to the Greek word for grace. And what is the Greek word for gift? It's karis ma. The ma ending this thing, this is the result of that. So a gift is a result of grace. And so if I pulled a hundred dollar bill out of my wallet and I gave it to Chris just as a gift, that only would be grace, it would be a miracle. Right? So that's why in Romans 3.24 it says we're justified by His grace as a gift. It says in Romans 5.17, it's speaking of the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness. So that's what grace is. A long time ago I heard this and I'd forgotten it, grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. Y'all knew that, right? But that's a good application illustration of what it is. So what I wanna do today is we talk about God's grace. There's two views of God's grace. The Augustinian view is that grace is irresistible. And then there's another view propagated by John Wesley and others, and that's called prevenient grace. What does prevenient mean? It goes before, antecedent, ahead of time grace. So we're gonna talk about how these two graces are different, but what's the name of the British monk who lived around AD 400? And the question is, how necessary is God's grace for salvation? And his answer was zero, Pelagius. Nothing to do with plagiarism, that's something different. So he said Adam and Eve screwed up, they're bad examples. but we can learn from their mistakes. There's no original sin. We're all born basically good, just like Adam and Eve were, and you don't need God's grace to go to heaven. You can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. So if I use that cliff example again, man falls off a cliff, he hits the bottom, he bounces, but he's fine. He's fully conscious. In fact, he knows how to rock climb, and he rock climbs back up the face of the cliff to the top. No help from God needed. Thank you very much. So that could be Plagia's view. Now, yes, Rabban? Because I've heard it discussed. Is that considered heresy? Yes, I was just about to say. He said, is that considered heresy? And everybody thinks so, except maybe Jace over there. So, oh. Not this, it's that, okay. Now, that was condemned at the Council of Carthage in AD 418. So, it was a British monk who taught false things, and the Council of Carthage, which is in modern day Tunisia, condemned that, and it's been condemned ever since. I believe his direct descendant was Rob Bell. Direct descendant he said was Rob Bell, thank you. Now, what was the name of the man who was born in Algeria, so now we're going from Tunisia to Algeria, who lived when Plagias did and who wrote against Plagias? Augustine. It's spelled Augustine, but it's actually rightly pronounced Augustine. So it should be St. Augustine, Florida. But anyway, the question is, how important is God's grace to salvation? And he said it's 100% of grace, which we would all agree with. But what he went on to say was, even man's initial response to the gospel is caused by grace. And he taught irresistible grace, that you cannot ultimately resist God's grace. So I likened it on a positive side to Cupid's arrow. If God shoots you with the love arrow, you're goner to love, you're gonna respond. And that's kind of the way he saw it. And so that's based on some verses we've looked at. The inability part of it, total inability, comes from, no one, Jesus said, can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. There's your total inability. But that word grant, did to me, is the same word Jesus used a couple of verses before that. He said, all that the Father gives me, all that the Father grants to me, will come to me. So that's the irresistible part of it. So in Augustine's scenario, man falls off the cliff. He hits the bottom, he's knocked unconscious, he can't respond. So what God does is he lowers a stretcher on a rope, but the man can't get in it because he's unconscious. So God repels down the mountain face, picks the guy up, puts him in the basket, and then pulls him up to the top, and after he's at the top, God wakes him up. Now that would be, if I use that bad example, that's the Augustinian version of that. Now, let's go to some new material. When did these two guys live? This is around A.D. 400. Now, right after that, in A.D. 430, now we're going to go to France. So we're going from England to Tunisia to Algeria. Now we're going to go up to France. There were these monks and they were not happy with either extreme. They knew Plagius was wrong. They didn't like Augustine what he said either. And so they wanted to meet in the middle, and so they agreed with Augustine that man's sinful. He's born sinful. But they agreed with Pelagius that, well, he's not so sinful that he can't believe. He's got just enough innate ability to believe in Jesus. So they denied total inability. they denied that grace is irresistible, they denied unconditional election. So in their example, the man falls off a cliff, he hits the bottom, he's fully conscious, but he broke his leg and he can't rock climb back up to the top. So God lowers the rescue basket down to him, and the man is able on his own to decide to crawl in that basket or not, but once he rolls over into the basket, then God will pull him up to the top. So that view was called semi-Pelagianism. Now, it's not semi-Augustianism. Plagius was condemned. Augustine was said to be the right position. They departed from Augustine back toward Plagius. That's why it's called semi-Plagianism. You know, what happens in France stays in France, okay? So this view was condemned. in France at the Synod of Orange, which is a place in France, in A.D. 529. So that view was condemned as not right. Got it? Now, what we did talk about last time was another fella, a Protestant who agreed with Augustine that we are born with an inability to come to Jesus. He believed in total inability, this fella did. But somehow he didn't believe in irresistible grace and he didn't believe in unconditional election. He started teaching that God gives everybody just enough grace to overcome your sin nature and make a decision for Jesus of your own free will. What was his name? Jacob Arminius. Now, don't confuse the Armenians with the Armenians. I hear that all the time. An Armenian is an ethnic group that lived in Turkey and that area in Georgia over in there. Cher, the singer, is Armenian. She might also be Armenian, I don't know. But, Arminianism is a theological position. Armenians are a group of people. That said, under his view, man fell off a cliff. He's unconscious. He broke his leg. If he was awake, he broke his leg. So, what God did, God lowers the rope, God repels down the face of the cliff, he takes a glass of water, he splashes it in the man's face and he wakes him up, and God gives him the choice of rolling over into the rescue basket or not. And if he does roll into the rescue basket, God will go back up to the top and pull him up. Now, this view is called this word, prevenient grace. What's prevenient mean? Before, it comes before. So before God saves you, He gives you the choice, He gives you enough grace to make a choice and overcome your sin in nature. Did y'all understand that? And who besides Him pushed this view? I said a long time ago, Arminius started it. Who's the other guy? Wesley, yeah, that's right. Now this view was also condemned as error at the Senate of Dort in AD, what year was that? I don't know, 1619, shortly after Arminius lived. That's when they got around to that. The Senate of Dort said there's no such thing as prevenient grace. There's a whole lot of assumption going on there, and they went back to Augustine's irresistible grace. Now the good thing about the Arminian position is they taught total depravity. But by the time they introduce prevenient grace, they put them at the same position as the semi-plagians, where a man in his lost state actually does have the ability to choose to believe in Jesus or not. And that's how they get around all those verses like, no one can come to me, and no one seeks God, and no one understands. That's how they get around that. Make sense? So Augustine's position was the position of the original reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, those kind of people. And of course, the Senate of Dort. So I hope all of you here either believe in prevenient grace or irresistible grace. I hope none of you are semi-plagian. These views of Arminius and Augustine are both seen as within the household of faith. See, Arminians believe the gospel. They sincerely believe you're saved by grace through faith. That's good. but the grace they talk about is two different kinds of grace. Make sense? So here's my question for Arminians. And if any of you here are Arminian and you'd like to answer it, I'd be happy to hear it. And I'm sincere in this, but I ask, if prevenient grace is true, why is it that you believe and your neighbor does not? Why do you have faith and your neighbor does not? If God gives everybody prevenient grace, what's the difference that accounts for you believing and your neighbor not believing? Okay. I'm more experienced. I've got, now we're just making things up, obviously. I've got better education. I come from the right side of the tracks. You said where you grew up. Okay, so. Well, okay, maybe there's something in my genes. Maybe there's something in my genetics that makes my line of people better than your line of people. So you're coming down to either I'm smarter than you are, or I'm wiser than you are, right? Or maybe I'm more spiritual than you are. Yeah, maybe I'm more humble than you are. Now, I'm trying to be, this is pretty obnoxious, I realize I'm being obnoxious, but something, if prevenient grace is true, the difference between you believing and your neighbor not is You, there's something in or about you that makes the difference. And maybe the prevenient grace position isn't true, but you just need to realize that also begs this question over here. There is a Bible verse, it says, God chose what is foolish. That's 1 Corinthians 1, 26. God chose what is weak. God chose what is low and despised so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Arminians don't go around boasting. I'm not saying they do. But at the end of the day, if there's anything in you that caused you to believe and not your neighbor, that's something to boast about. So that is my question for Armenians. Why do you believe another doesn't? Usually when the Bible is talking about boasting, it's talking about I did good works. Faith and works are mutually exclusive. We're justified by faith apart from works. And usually people boast in how good they are. You talk to a Mormon, they boast on how good they are. But when you just get right down to boasting, you still have to answer why, if prevenient grace is true, you believe and your neighbor doesn't. So, it looks like you might have, in that regard, something to boast about. That was Job's argument that he was better than what he was treated. And God told him, arm yourself, place magisters around yourself and I'll give you the honor that I've given myself. That's a good point, there you go. All right, one of the doctrines of grace, Augustinian soteriology, or dare I say it, Calvinism, it teaches that God's grace cannot ultimately be resisted. It's directed explicitly to the elect who were chosen unconditionally because there's no reason we would ever qualify for salvation. And He gives them grace so that they absolutely will believe. So that's irresistible grace. Now, let's talk about another word in the Bible, God's calling. God's calling. Irresistible grace is directly related to the call of God. Now, there's two types of call. The first It's the general call of God. Let me read you a verse that talks about the general call of God and tell me what we can learn about the general call of God. Here it is. Jesus said, many are called, but few are chosen. So what can I learn about the general call of God from what Jesus said there? Many are called, few are chosen. Yeah, that word, yeah. That's it. The word, no one can come to me unless the father draws him. That's where we went through and looked at, I guess. That's what you're thinking about. We haven't looked at the Greek word for call. It's kaleo. It sounds like a word call. That same word is used throughout, but it clearly is used in a different sense. So yes, the last thing you said is the answer. man's interpretation that there's two different callings. That's right. And you're forced to say that because of the verses. A lot of the Greek words have multiple meanings and that meaning is determined by context. It's the same in English. So let's go back to what Jesus said. The general call of God. Many are called, few are chosen. What do we learn about the general call of God in that verse, Chris? Not all the called are chosen. That means you can resist the general call of God. The general call of God never saved anybody. Acts chapter 17 verse 30, God commands all people everywhere to repent. That's the general call of God. So if only a few of the called are chosen, why should we bother to evangelize? How about because Jesus said to do it? Obedience is good when Jesus said, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the end of the earth. Give me another reason we should evangelize. Spurgeon said, if the elect had a letter E on their foreheads, you could only witness to those people. But we don't know who the elect are. And so we witnessed to everybody. Now, God has predestined the end, which is salvation. He's also predestined the means, which is the foolishness of preaching the gospel. That's why we do it. Bible says, how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? So we are part of a divine process whereby God brings his elect to salvation. So this past week, Ethan was witnessing to this girl on campus, and they had a good long talk. And I went over and I said, how'd it go? And he said, basically, terrible. She's not at all interested. She's atheist, at best agnostic, totally indifferent to spiritual things, just tolerated him while they were talking. And he was kind of bummed out. Oh, I should have said this. I should have said that. I wish I hadn't said so-and-so. But you know what? She might yet be one of the elect. You don't know. He planted a seed. And it gives you confidence in salvation because you can't screw it up too bad. God's the one that saves these people. He's using us to plant seeds. You're not going to be clever enough to argue them into heaven or be cool and hip and nice enough to cause them to believe. So the point is, be encouraged in your evangelism. God wants us to do it. And it's not dependent on you saying things just the right way. And doesn't matter how much they resist. God may save them yet. That's the good news. And even if you're constantly rejected, historically, these missionaries that go to remote places and live their whole lives and see one convert, but they stay there, have almost all been believers in the Augustinian view. See, the Arminian view thinks you can do something to convince people to believe, and when nobody believes, they get discouraged and go home. Well, the ones who stick with it, are the Augustinians. And that's why Paul said, I endure everything for the sake of the elect that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. That's why Paul put up with shipwrecks and beatings and jail time and stoning, because he knew the elect were out there. Amen. So that's the general call of God. Now let's look at the effective call of God. What does effective mean? It means it works. This one works. It gets results. So it's related to irresistible grace in that sense. So let me give you a definition. This is from the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. God the Son has poured out the Holy Spirit to work alongside the preached word. The Spirit of God regenerates elect sinners and draws them irresistibly to faith in Christ the Savior. That's the definition of irresistible grace, but it's related to the effect of call. So John 5, 21, Jesus said, the Son gives life to whom He will. Whose will? Jesus will. Colossians 2.13, you who were dead in your trespasses, God made alive. So it is true, if God doesn't resurrect the corpse, nobody's gonna respond. You can go down to the cemetery and preach the gospel, ain't nobody gonna move. God's gotta resurrect the corpse. That's the way it is every time you witness to anybody. Matthew 11.27, no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. So who knows the Father? Whoever the Son chooses to reveal Him to. So here's an example of the effective call from Romans 8, verse 29. Those whom God predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. That's called the golden chain or thread of salvation. Look, this is an inescapable loop. If you've been predestined, you've been called, and you've been called, you've been justified, and you've been justified, you're gonna be glorified. So that's the effective call of God for the predestined, for the chosen, as opposed to the general call of God. So back to Jess' point, the same Greek word every case, but it's clearly used in different senses. So total inability, unconditional election, and irresistible grace, and effective calling are all together as a package deal. All right, now what you've all been waiting for is God's foreknowledge. The Bible says at least twice that we are chosen, we're elected according to the foreknowledge of God. So let's just take it apart. What does fore mean? As in before, okay, ahead of time. And what's knowledge? Something you know. So God knew stuff ahead of time. Now, the Greek word is prognosko. We got our word prognosis. Now, if a doctor gives you a prognosis, what's that mean? He knows ahead of time about your sickness. He knows the progression of that sickness. Did he cause it to happen? No, doctor doesn't cause it. He's just studied and he knows ahead of time the progression of your sickness if you have one. Now, that's the Arminian position. God doesn't cause anybody to be saved, but he knows who, of their own free will, given prevenient grace, will make the right choice and believe in Jesus. And so based on what he foreknows in his omniscience, he responds to that by choosing people for salvation. So God's election is conditional. What's it conditioned on? Now, the problem is, the Bible never says that. This is an Armenian theologian. This is from the theology book I had in my Armenian seminary. His name is H.C. Thiessen. He believes in what I just said. But he says, we are nowhere told what it is in the foreknowledge of God that determines his choice. He says it is postulating to believe that God chose those he knew in advance would accept him. So this is an honest theologian saying, we're kind of filling in some blanks here. Guess what he's saying. So I just want you to realize the Bible never defines foreknowledge as God's omniscient prior realization of who would one day believe. In fact, if the doctrine of total inability is true, what did God's omniscience tell him about who would one day believe left of his own free will? Nobody! That's right. In fact, so it's despite foreseen ill will that God out of sheer mercy picks some people to show mercy to. If you want to run with foreknowledge, meaning you know something ahead of time, John Murray said, God foresees it because He causes it. The faith that God foresees is the faith He Himself creates. So there's two meanings of foreknowledge. One is a mental comprehension of facts in advance. And the word does mean that, or shall I say it can mean that. But just like with the call of God, there's several definitions for words. And if you look it up in a Greek lexicon, The first definition is what we just said, to know facts ahead of time. The second definition, which is right there in the lexicon, is a little different. It means to choose beforehand. Strong's Concordance defines it as a prearrangement. It is to love beforehand, to regard with favor beforehand, to choose beforehand. It is a sovereign distinguishing love. I want to show you the evidence. Romans 8, 29 says, those whom he foreknew he also predestined. What's the difference between saying those whom God foreknew and what God foreknew? Is it whom he foreknew he predestined or what he foreknew he predestined? What's the difference between these two? This is personal. This is people. And this is information. This is facts. It doesn't say that what God foreknew is you would one day believe. It's whom He foreknew. He placed His love on people in eternity past. See the difference there? So what we can do is go other places in the Bible and look at this word for know. See how it's used. So we'll go to Genesis. Cain knew his wife and she conceived. What does it mean when it says Cain knew his wife? That's what it means. It's not like, oh, it's nice to make your acquaintance. Oh yeah, I know her. I remember I met her in high school one time. Let me just say, he had an intimate knowledge of her. The word no, in this case, is pregnant with meaning. All right? Now, Psalm 101, verse four. God says, I will know nothing of evil. Does that mean God doesn't know that evil exists? He wouldn't know sin if he saw it. Now what does it mean? He says, I will know nothing of evil. What does that mean? I ain't have nothing to do with it. God dwells in inapproachable light. We're like darkness. That's why you don't see God right now. You'd vaporize. Jesus is God, but he was veiled, right? So it's like flying in a spaceship to the sun. You're going to burn up. We just cannot coexist with God if there's any evil in us. We're gone. So that's what it means. He doesn't have any relationship with evil. Amos chapter 3, verse 2, he's talking to Israel. And he says to Israel, you only have I known of all the families of the earth. You see, so the truth is God is not omniscient. He doesn't know about the existence of Egypt, or Rome, or even Guatemala. He doesn't know. All he knows is Israel, right? What does it mean? You only have I known among all the nations of the earth. What does that mean? Okay, he says, ne'er too intimate with ancient Israel, Hint, not modern Israel. Ancient Israel is the only nation in the history of the world that God had a covenant relationship with. And unlike what I've heard preached not long ago, that includes United States of America. We're not in that relationship with God either. Here's another one. Now this is Jesus at Judgment Day. He says, I hope you never hear this. He says, I never knew you Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So see, there are some people, Jesus doesn't even know what their name is. I don't remember making you, what does it mean, I never knew you? They're trying to run with the word we got. Yeah. That's correct. That's correct. And in this case, it's a new covenant relationship. It's a loving relationship. Jacob, I love. Esau, I hated. That means he chose to have a covenant relationship with Jacob. Now, I don't know that he hated Esau, literally, but he was not in covenant with him. It's interesting, comparing verses, Romans 8, 29, those whom he foreknew, he predestined. Ephesians says it in a similar way. It says, in love, he predestined. So that's that loving relationship. Remember, there are two definitions for foreknowledge. You can look up any Greek lexicon, but it looks to me like consistent with the rest of Scripture. We're going to go to the second one. That means a prearrangement with certain people. It says in Romans, those whom he foreknew, he predestined. Those he predestined, he called. Those he called, he justified. And those he justified, he glorified. Can someone be foreknown but not predestined? Can you be predestined but not called? Can you be called but not justified? Can you be justified but never glorified? Can you? No, that's that golden chain, that's that loop. So the first application I would offer is, you can't lose your salvation. You didn't do anything to get it. You can't do anything to lose it. Jesus said, again, all that the Father gives me will most likely come to me. Well, it doesn't say that. Oh, it says probably come. No, it says will come to me. And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all he has given me. This is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life. Now, let me ask you a question. If you had eternal life for 10 years and then you lost it, did you have eternal life? What did you have? You had 10 year life. Eternal life is by definition eternal. Jesus said, I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. Okay, come up here. You, come up here. Try to snatch it out of my hand now. You'd be snatching. You're the devil. That's why I had you up here. And then it says, listen to this. So you can't snatch it out of my hand. Then it says, and my father who's given it to me is greater than all. No one can snatch him out of the? Father's hand. So, man, you're going to have to wrestle through all that blood of Jesus, and then you're going to have to pry all his fingers off, and then you've got the Father on top of it. Yeah. So, thank you. Go back to your place. All right. So, thank you, everybody. That was worth the price of admission, wasn't it? Now, Paul says, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else, not even Dwayne, will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus. Okay, Ephesians chapter 1. You ever bought a house, you had to put a down payment? That's the Greek word here. What happens if you put the down payment on the house and then say, no, I changed my mind? They keep your down payment. You think God's gonna forfeit the Holy Spirit? You got a guarantee. You got a down payment. You got to seal the Holy Spirit. Now, there are some verses that appear to say you could lose your salvation. And it appears that some people do. You ever known anybody? Started out with Christ, made a big splash, professional faith, testified in church, got baptized, came to church, went out witnessing. and then he fell away. There's been a lot of them, a lot of famous ones too. Well, there are a lot of false professors who are not true possessors. They're fooled. I don't know that they know they're not saved, but the proof's in the pudding. So that's why we say the faith that fizzles before the finish had a flaw from the first. They're always going to be people like Judas. You would have thought he was one of the 12. You'd have thought he was in, but he was out. Always was. But that's the application. You can't lose your salvation. By the way, one last application I'll say for today is because of this ironclad process that's going on, look, we get a lot of disappointments in life. You don't get into the school you wanted. You don't get the job you wanted. You don't get the promotion. Maybe you don't get the girl you wanted, whatever it is. Maybe you get sick. It's terrible. But here's a promise. God's gonna use everything to make you more like Jesus. That's guaranteed, okay? For those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. So God is using all this junk to make us more like Jesus, and that's good. Amen? Okay, I'm about out of time. Do you have any learned comments you would like to make or rebuttals or questions? Yes, sir. Well, Peter says God is not slowing his promises, Peter says, but he's patient toward you, desiring you to come. Well, who's you? He's writing. to the elect, that's who he wrote to. So I would say you as the elect there. The other verse you're thinking about is from Timothy, God desires all men to be saved, doesn't say that. Well, it's like the word call. Hey, yeah, so we take the word call, thank you, right, and we erase the C, and we got all, thank you. This is not just clever words, but there's, All men without exception is what the Arminians take that to mean. God desires all men without exception to be saved, but man, he just can't pull it off, because God's a gentleman. You ever seen that picture of Jesus? He's knocking on the door, but there's no doorknob, because he can't get in. You, the mighty man, are inside the house, and only you can open the door. The savior is waiting to enter your heart. Oh, won't you let him come in? Time after time, what is it? He has waited before and now he is waiting again to see if you're willing to open the door. Oh, won't you let him come in? I don't remember how that song goes, but you got it. That's the all men without exception view. What we take it to mean in the Augustinian camp is all men without distinction. You see, the Jews had this idea that only them were gonna be saved. They couldn't fathom that Gentiles could be in the kingdom. And so a lot of the New Testament writers, they're pushing in the door all men without distinction. It doesn't matter whether you're Jew or Gentile or African or Chinese or European, without distinction. This message was produced by the New Testament Reformation Fellowship, reforming today's church with New Testament church practices. Permission is hereby granted for you to reproduce this message. You can find us on the web at www.ntrf.org. May God bless you as you seek to follow Him in complete obedience to His Word. May your faith in the Lord Jesus be strengthened and your daily walk with Him deepened. Oh.